MM - No idea about that - I presume its something created by Virgin or Google for the purposes of their long and highly flawed migration.

CCC
if you log into your VM email account you will find the same settings available as described above for Google. The copies can be prevented but for some strange reason it retains copies of the deleted messages in "bin".
You are correct in saying that the option in the email client not to leave copies no longer works.
VM state that this move is a security improvement but I can't see how. There is no way I'm going to post personal messages via Google or any other web based system.

iiwarm - thank you. I will have a look at that, but I'm not comfortable with having to keep going to the bin to dump stuff, so I guess it will be another ISP, when I've decided which one.

Virgin did this swap in the name of "improvement & customer service", which translates from corporate double speak in to plain English as "Stuff you gits, we're doing this for our own benefit & profit".

Microsoft used to be the big target for mistrust, complaints and hacking etc, but Google far outstrips them in terms of being devious & intrusive etc.

If you think Google is bad, check out Facebook of late. At least Google isn't a free service that's still trying to work out how to monetize its service - it's always been earning money from its search/advertising activities.

However, you're right, they have almost displaced Microsoft in the Evil Empire contest. But in terms of control freakery, check out Apple - and they now have a bigger market cap than Microsoft.

MM - I had a Facebook account under a pseudonym with ludicrous personal details (mother - Queen Boudicca, father- Conan The Librarian, etc), for a short while for a specific purpose but have now dumped it.

To me Facebook and other similar sites, eg Twitter, Bebo etc are probably the most pointless and trivial things currently on the web, (I'm showing my age I think!). They'll probably fall apart sometime in the future when someone comes up with an idea that's perceived to be more "cool".

Actually, Twitter is the least pointless and most useful of the lot. It's also the most misunderstood. While it contains its share of pointless drivel, it is, in reality, a realtime news feed of short headlines and links. You select what you want receive.

For example, I follow BBC Radio4 Today, TechCrunch (hot tech news from Sili Valley), HMTreasury, Edmund Conway (economic correspondent of the Telegraph), John Lilly (CEO of Mozilla - the FireFox folks), Churchill Club (SIlicon Valley forum) and so on.

Can I copy the message I posted before the weekend to see if anyone is clued up about 'ad-hoc' wifi networks.


I have just bought one of these.

I intend to try to send images to a Samsung Q1 Ultra.
Like this.

It is using the tablet version of XP

To get it to work I need to set up an 'ad-hoc' wifi network on the Q1 - and they recommend using one with WEP. Each time to configure one and try to get it to connect I get the messages " Please Wait while Windows connect to the xxx
network. Waiting for Network".

The support guys at Eye-Fi say " it means that your Windows system
is unable to connect to this network thus the card cannot see it as
available to connect. Please try to remove any security from the network
and try to connect to it with Windows first. At this stage windows
must be able to connect to this ad-hoc network. If it is unable to
do so, this has nothing to do with Eye-Fi card. Once Windows will
connect to the wireless network you will be able to connect Eye-Fi
card to it."

I have removed my firewalls and everything else I can think of.


Since posting the above the Help Desk at Eye-Fi has suggested that I take a trial of Virtual Access Point. This I did and, to my annoyance, whilst it looks as if it will load on my Vista PC the same installation file flags up 'this file is corrupt' on the XP tablet. So I am no further on....

TP

I have a problem with my Dell Laptop running Win7

For some reason it is not detecting the battery. The system tray power icon says no battery detected. Device manager says the battery is working ok. I have tried reseating the battery but it still does not work.

Any ideas short of buying a new battery?

Jeff: Have you just upgraded to Win 7? And did this problem occur since the upgrade?

PS on edit: How old is the laptop and the battery?

Hi MM
Laptop is about 2 years old and I have been running Win7 for about 4 months. Tried a couple of fixes I found but still not working, so guess it might need a new battery,

Fixes
1. Unplug AC adapter. Shutdown

2. Remove battery, Connect AC Adapter

3. Start windows7. Remove Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery,

4. Shutdown, Remove AC Adapter, Install battery, Reattach AC Adapter.

5. Power up -

===================================

01. Turn off laptop.

02. Unplug AC power.

03. Remove battery.

04. Replace AC power.

05. Turn on laptop, allow OS to boot.

06. Once logged in to the machine, perform a normal shut down.

07. Unplug AC power.

08. Replace battery.

09. Replace AC power.

10. Turn on laptop, allow OS to boot. The battery should once again be charging as normal.

Hi Jeff: Sounds like it might well be the battery.

If you habitually leave the battery in, but run on mains power, it can shorten the life of the battery. Modern Li-Ion batteries are fairly tolerent but they don't like being discharged just a little then recharged many times.

MM
Is it advisable to get the battery from Dell or are the cheaper ones from HK etc on ebay just as good?

I got a cheap Dell battery from Ebay for my 1501, (old model with obsolete design of battery). Works extremely well w/o problems. Worth a look - Original Dell currently available on Ebay for 45.90

Can't really add much advice to this topic, but my computer guru who occasionally fixes my laptop tells me that the useful life of a laptop (Li-ion) battery is about 2 years. My battery (6 yrs old) now charges fully but discharges very rapidly, so now run it on mains all the time.
Reading above, I can't quite see why the software can't detect the battery even if it is worn out. It's possible there is a short in the battery which prevents it from charging at all, but that is easily tested by using a multi-meter. My only snippet of advice would be to test to see if the battery is holding it's charge. Even then it's possible that the PCB (DC power adaptor) which switches from mains to battery power is at fault.
For new batteries try Googling as there are lots of good internet suppliers out there.
Also following may help : http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2008/07/17/laptop-battery-stops-charging-when-move-power-cord/

The Long-winded trick is to revert to the original OS (XP?).....IMHO* it is unlikely the battery could deteriorate so much, just changing the OS.
If the msg is 'Cannot find battery', it's probably a Power-management (software) fault, rather than the battery/connections/etc.
( * If the warning is "Low battery", this could be a result of changing the OS, simply because of much disc-activity taking power...but reading the orig.Querey this is not so.)

Another trick is to run the PC from Ubuntu (=Linux), using a "Live CD" - this takes over the PC without installing on your HDD. You must empower the CD/DVD drive for booting, to stop "Windows" taking over. "Live CDs" are free from Ubuntu, but note the operation will be slow until installed on a HDD, as CD drives are tardy. Some clever folks muight provide "Live" operation from a USB-mem stick, but again this must be empowered before the HDD.
I have a Li-ion battery in my D-Camera, 5-years old and no ovbious sign of failure (Yikes!). I believe the "memory" effect(mentioned here) was only early NiCds, although I suspect all batteries exhibit this, in part. Without specialist kknowledge it's difficult to check batteries, esp as you can't leave it 1week say, because you want to use the PC, also operationg on a known bad battery might stop the OS shutting down correctly.
I would search (but not G-) the internet for this fault, as I suspect it could be Software-related if the PC worked fine before. MS might be a good starting point.
Ubuntu-Live provides limited function, but should incl a WP so you can view/edit most text-files...but don't expect to print, unless you have a PostScript printer. Once on a HDD, then Ubuntu is "almost" as good as Windows, althought it is slightly different things like WP are almost identical - eg if you use OpenOffice which is functionally the equal of MS-Office, but saves you 350....enough to buy two batteries, eh?
jeffmack - I'm unclear how there is this "fault" - yet you've been running Win7 - if it doesn't stop the operation, why worry?

Hi anyone who can help
Conmputer on start up or after i have left it for a while this message comes up

RUNDLL X error loading c:\program files\commonfiles\UUS2.dll

the specified module could not be found

what does it mean and how do i get rid of it thanks

Puzzled.

I have just re-installed iespell.
It workes great will all sites except with MoneyAm.
When I go onto the MoneyAm site, it just disapears from my tool bar.

Any help would be apreciated.

Greek.

Thanks for all the suggestions re my battery problem. In the end I bought a new battery, which arrived today, and it is all working ok.

I need to repartition my HDD (160GB in Two partitions) as the "C" is nearly full is there reasonably priced partitioning software out there???

Thanks in anticipation SD